Uncle Tom's Cabin eBook

“Lor, you an’t gwine to make me believe
dat ar! I know de Lord an’t here,”
said the woman; “’tan’t no use talking,
though. I’s jest gwine to camp down, and
sleep while I ken.”

The women went off to their cabins, and Tom sat alone,
by the smouldering fire, that flickered up redly in
his face.

The silver, fair-browed moon rose in the purple sky,
and looked down, calm and silent, as God looks on
the scene of misery and oppression,—­looked
calmly on the lone black man, as he sat, with his
arms folded, and his Bible on his knee.

“Is God HERE?” Ah, how is it possible
for the untaught heart to keep its faith, unswerving,
in the face of dire misrule, and palpable, unrebuked
injustice? In that simple heart waged a fierce
conflict; the crushing sense of wrong, the foreshadowing,
of a whole life of future misery, the wreck of all
past hopes, mournfully tossing in the soul’s
sight, like dead corpses of wife, and child, and friend,
rising from the dark wave, and surging in the face
of the half-drowned mariner! Ah, was it easy
here to believe and hold fast the great password
of Christian faith, that “God IS, and is the
REWARDER of them that diligently seek Him”?

Tom rose, disconsolate, and stumbled into the cabin
that had been allotted to him. The floor was
already strewn with weary sleepers, and the foul air
of the place almost repelled him; but the heavy night-dews
were chill, and his limbs weary, and, wrapping about
him a tattered blanket, which formed his only bed-clothing,
he stretched himself in the straw and fell asleep.

In dreams, a gentle voice came over his ear; he was
sitting on the mossy seat in the garden by Lake Pontchartrain,
and Eva, with her serious eyes bent downward, was
reading to him from the Bible; and he heard her read.

“When thou passest through the waters, I will
be with thee, and the rivers they shall not overflow
thee; when thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt
not be burned, neither shall the flame kindle upon
thee; for I am the Lord thy God, the Holy One of Israel,
thy Saviour.”

Gradually the words seemed to melt and fade, as in
a divine music; the child raised her deep eyes, and
fixed them lovingly on him, and rays of warmth and
comfort seemed to go from them to his heart; and, as
if wafted on the music, she seemed to rise on shining
wings, from which flakes and spangles of gold fell
off like stars, and she was gone.

Tom woke. Was it a dream? Let it pass for
one. But who shall say that that sweet young
spirit, which in life so yearned to comfort and console
the distressed, was forbidden of God to assume this
ministry after death?

It is a beautiful belief,
That ever round our
head
Are hovering, on angel
wings,
The spirits of the dead.